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Author
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Topic: Intelligent design is not a mechanistic theory
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Frances
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posted 06. April 2003 22:37
In my discussion with Nelson Alonso on lateral gene transfer Nelson suggests that
quote:
The mechanism for evolution may very well be intelligent design.
I find this a fascinating assertion in the light of the statements made by Dembski which seem to contradict this:
quote:
_Intelligent design is not a mechanistic theory!_
William Dembski in "Intelligent Design Coming Clean" Meta Views 098
So while Dembski seems to deny that intelligent design is a mechanistic theory he does try to answer the question "What are the candidates here for something in nature that is nonetheless beyond nature? In my view the most promising candidate is specified complexity."
But like ICness, CSI has been shown to not be a reliable indicator of ID.
Nelson also misrepresents my claim by stating that "You said that I was the product of Horizontal Gene Transfer because of my parents." If Nelson were to check out my original statement I did not mention horizontal gene transfer in this context but merely pointed out that
quote:
You then quote "A Darwinian pathway is characterized as step by step, small, selectively advantageous changes, not the transfer of wholesale machines from one organism to another. "
You seem to be unfamiliar with the fact that you are the product of exactly this, the transfer of wholesale machines from both your father AND your mother to you. I hope that you are not suggesting that Darwinism proposes only mutations as source for variation? You may find a useful introduction
to biology and the concept of genetic variation
Other claims by Nelson that need to be yet supported by evidence
'Lateral gene transfer is indeed the complete opposite of a Darwinian pathway, which is why Darwinists were so resistant to accept it at first. '
Perhaps Nelson can show that Darwinists were resistant to LGT and that this was because of LGT being the complete opposite of a Darwinian pathway? Two doubtful claims imho.
'Doolittle had to practically beg Darwinists to stop resisting LGT for obvious reasons'
Please show that Doolittle had to beg Darwinists to stop resisting LGT and explain what you believe are 'obvious reasons' in this context.
When asked Nelson responds "But you offer absolutely no response to my quotations, nor do you offer any evidence to the contrary.". Nelson now seems to shift the burden of proof to my side but in that case why did Nelson use the term 'beg' and 'for obvious reasons' ?
Nelson argues that his choice of words was irrelevant, I disagree since they form the foundation of Nelson's 'argument'.
quote:
Fine , call it what you like, he was saying that evolutionary biologists should stop resisting LGT.
When in fact Doolittle said nothing of the sort in the quote
Doolittle
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In other words, biologists might rejoice in and explore, rather than regret or attempt to dismiss, the creative evolutionary role of LGT.
About LGT and my characterization as bacterial sex Nelson responds
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Lateral gene transfer does not equal bacterial sex as you imply in your parenthesis. It may occur during sex.
I am interested in the last claim "it may occur during sex". Perhaps Nelson could give us an example of LGT during sex?
But the argument was that LGT is in many ways equivalent to bacterial sex. Let me provide you with some quotes that seem to support my argument
quote:
Bacteroides may pass these antibiotic-resistance genes on to other bacteria that can cause human disease.
"Once these genes get loose it's like letting a genie out of a bottle," says Salyers.
One possible cause for all this "bacterial sex" could be the antibiotics themselves, says Salyers
We know from laboratory studies that one catalyst that triggers horizontal gene transfer is the antibiotic tetracycline. Tetracycline is like an aphrodisiac for Bacteroides, causing it to transfer its resistance genes. This suggests to us that this orgy of horizontal gene transfer may have been due to widespread of tetracycline in humans over the last several decades."
From "HUMAN GUT POTENTIAL BREEDING GROUND FOR ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE"
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Horizontal transfer of DNA (bacterial sex)
Source
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Nonetheless, bacteria do have the ability to exchange segments of DNA with other bacteria.
Because these segments can become fixed in a bacterium’s genome and confer new traits, gene exchange among bacteria could be considered to be a form of bacterial sex. DNA exchange between bacteria is called horizontal gene transfer to differentiate it from vertical gene transfer, the inheritance of a gene from a progenitor. Virtually all of the information available on
horizontal gene transfer among microbes is limited to bacteria, although new studies indicate the same will be true for the archaea. Accordingly, bacteria will be the main focus of this chapter.
Source
quote:
HORIZONTAL GENE TRANSFER MECHANISMS
There are three principal mechanisms that facilitate HGT in prokaryotes (reviewed in Syvanen and Kado, 1998). Genes can be horizontally transferred by means of transformation, conjugation, and transduction.
and
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Conjugation, also known as bacterial sex, occurs
when an organism builds a tube-like structure known as the pilus, joins it to its ‘‘mate’’, and transfers a plasmid through the tube. This has been well studied among E. coli (a Gram-negative prokaryote) and the plasmids that are transferred are known as conjugative plasmids.
Source
And after arguing that LGT is inconsistent with Darwinism Nelson seems to change direction 180 degrees when claiming that
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I realize that despite the fact that LGT is not gradual, step by step, incremental selectable changes, Darwininan evolution can include it. But thats because Darwinian evolution is so plastic a a theory that anything is consistent with it.
How does this explain his earlier claim that
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Lateral gene transfer is indeed the complete opposite of a Darwinian pathway, which is why Darwinists were so resistant to accept it at first.
So far the only plasticity seems to be found in the claims by Nelson about LGT and Darwinism.
And finally I am interested in Nelson explaining what he means this time when he uses the 'for obvious reasons' claim
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Nelson: You continue to make the assertion that IC systems are not reliable indicators of ID. But you forego any argument to that effect for obvious reasons.
Nelson's arguments seem to change course so many times that I am not sure at this moment what his arguments really amount to.
He claims that "If you can show a pathway that was due to chance/regularity then it is not consistent with intelligent design. " and yet at the same time he claims that "I'm talking about complex machines appearing abrupttly (aquired immunity, photosynthesis, bacterial flagellum). Due to their dizzying complexity and their irreducibility, this is essential. LGT may be the vehicle the designer used to do this. "
But LGT is fully due to regularity and is in fact observed in nature without the need for intelligent design so on one hand Nelson seems to be arguing that ID fails if regularity/chance can be identified but on the other hand he still argues that LGT was used by ID.
Thus when Nelson claims that 'ID isn't so plastic that anything is consitent with it. In fact, this is one of the reasons why I like ID. ' I would say that his own arguments place significant doubt on this claim.
Finally Nelson seems to use the same logical fallacy as Hunter by claiming that arguments against design were used as evidence for evolution. But in fact what was argued is not "Not Intelligent design thus natural" but rather "Science can explain the observations in a non ad hoc manner while ID seems to have much more problems in addressing them in a non ad hoc manner."
Thus the claim by Hunter that "evolution is true because divine creation is false" is inherently flawed and in fact unsupportable.
As far as Nelson's representation of Gedanken's argument not matching what I believe Gedanken actually argued let me quote from Gedanken's posting
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I hope that Alonso and other readers will understand why I find statements like “I think it is unlikely that this natural process can without intelligent intervention” to be unsupported. The lack of knowledge of specifics of the flagellum development do not imply such difficulty. No reasonable case has been made why there are not selectable steps that could result in the flagellum.
Perhaps you can show me where Gedanken stated that "His only response to IC is that it is an argument from ignorance because he believes that Darwinism is true no matter what the evidence shows."
As far as your claim "ID does not rely on sweeping unknown alternatives to ID. Thats why Dembski calls his method of elimination a "local induction", it only applies to existing testable ones. Not invisible imaginary ones"
Which reduces the design inference to an argument of ignorance since as I stated "ID which relies on sweeping clean all alternatives for regularity and chance has a problem when is obviously cannot sweep clean due to lack of knowledge"
From NFL we notice for instance "Sweeping the Field of Chance Hypotheses"
David L Rice argues
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I'm trying to do with topo II is a part of Dembski's criteria of "sweeping the field clear of chance hypotheses" - sweeping the field clear is a necessary condition of design logic.
Source
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Earman offers these remarks in a chapter titled "A Plea for Eliminative Induction." He himself thinks there is a legitimate and necessary place for eliminative induction in scientific practice. What, then, does he make of this criticism? Here is how he handles it (p. 165): "My response on behalf of the eliminativist has two parts. (1) Elimination need not proceed in such a plodding fashion, for the alternatives may be so ordered that an infinite number can be eliminated in one blow. (2) Even if we never get down to a single hypothesis, progress occurs if we succeed in eliminating finite or infinite chunks of the possibility space. This presupposes, of course, that we have some kind of measure, or at least topology, on the space of possibilities." To this Earman adds (p. 177) that eliminative inductions are typically local inductions, in which there is no pretense of considering all logically possible hypotheses. Rather, there is tacit agreement on the explanatory domain of the hypotheses as well as on what auxiliary hypotheses may be used in constructing explanations.
Dembski in "Naturalism's Argument from Invincible Ignorance: A Response to Howard Van Till"
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posted 06. April 2003 23:09
This seems like less of a brainstorm and more of an assertion. I'll see where it develops but it has my fullest attention.
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Frances
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posted 06. April 2003 23:12
I started this thread per suggestion of the moderator
quote:
This thread is closed with this post (200).
Anyone is encouraged to start a new thread whose title better reflects the topic of the current discussion.
All subsequent posts in this thread will be moved to a new thread and a link will be provided in this space when the new thread takes shape. We will leave this thread open for the time being so that posters don't lose their current work.
And although I agree with the moderator that this sounds like an assertion, it is a very relevant assertion made by William Dembski. It may be important to realize what ID is and isn't and I am hoping to use this thread to explore some of these very relevant issues to ID and its contributions to science.
[ 06. April 2003, 23:14: Message edited by: Frances ]
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gedanken
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posted 06. April 2003 23:34
Sorry, Frances, I think this is an interesting topic, but not really a continuation of the basics that several of us were talking about. So I would like for it to continue if there is interest, but not specifically as the extension of the using GA vs built by GA (??) thread.
As to the continuation of the discussion (which was kicked off with a post Frances made) would deal more in "extra-natural mechanisms". Yersinia has started a thread on "defining extra-natural" which seems to relate to that aspect.
A third sub-thread was the basics of IC that were the basis of the tangential direction. Could a topic be started to continue that aspect, perhaps including both aspects? I'm thinking for the moment that it could include both definition of extra-natural and this issue (design mechanistic?) and issues of IC. I think that the combination of the 3 aspects was very interesting, and I am sorry to see the threads fragment into distinct topics, since they so closely relate. So I would like to know if someone has an idea for a thread that combines these issues together. Hopefully nothing would be lost, perhaps moderator could move relevant posts or something if a change of main topic is developed. Thanks
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Nel
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posted 06. April 2003 23:45
For once I find myself agreeing with Ged. There is nothing in Francis' post that I didn't already address in the Organisms using GAs vs. Organisms being built by GAs. Francis didn't discuss any of the quotes or any of my points, for example, about how Gould stated that Mayre looked at things in biology "that make the least sense" as the "proof" of evolution. Or how Dembski describes local inductions as existing testable pathways and not imaginary future ones.
All I really have to say here is that although ID is not a mechanistic theory in that it can be described as a regularity, (intelligent agents are not predictable mechanisms), the tools that intelligent agents use can be described as mechanisms. Such as a lawn mower used to mow the lawn. Or a word processor used to correct misspellings.
When I said "The mechanism for evolution is intelligent design" I meant that intelligent design is a mechanism but not the intelligent designer. If you go to http://www.dictionary.com
you'll see what definition of mechanism I'm using:
quote:
An instrument or a process, physical or mental, by which something is done or comes into being: “The mechanism of oral learning is largely that of continuous repetition”
This tread I'm taking is relevant to Yersinia's thread.
[ 06. April 2003, 23:58: Message edited by: Nelson_Alonso ]
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Frances
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posted 07. April 2003 02:51
Nelson,
I believe that you are not accurately representing Gedanken's statements. He did not say that the thread I started had not been addressed in the original thread, rather he stated that my continuation of the thread was not what Gedanken and others were discussing. I agree that Nelson somewhat side tracked the issue with his unsupported claims hence my attempt to take the moderator's suggestion to start my own thread on the topic of my current discussions with Nelson.
While I have somewhat of a hard time keeping track of the ever changing arguments of Nelson, I have at least attempted to show how his arguments seem to be self contradictory and at odds with for instance the claims by Dembski. So now the argument seems to be that ID is not really a mechanistic theory although "The mechanism for evolution may very well be intelligent design."
So far nothing Nelson has said about ID and mechanisms seems to be helpful in determining if one can expect a clarification of the statement that the mechanism for evolution may very well be intelligent design. If Nelson truly believes this then I am sure that he can propose some of these mechanisms. Surely his comments even rephrased in its latest variant seem to be at odds with Dembski's claims. So my question to Nelson is: Do you believe that Dembski was wrong when he made the claim that "_Intelligent design is not a mechanistic theory!_"? In that case could you describe some of the mechanisms of intelligent design as it applies to evolution?
On the other hand one may want to accept Dembski's claim but then I wonder what intelligent design is really about? Especially since identification of intelligent design does not negate the possibility that the intelligent designer is 'natural selection'.
Or as Dembski says
quote:
Similarly, intelligent design proposes a far richer problematic than science committed to naturalism. Intelligent design is fully capable of accommodating mechanistic explanations. Intelligent design has no interest in dismissing mechanistic explanations. Such explanations are wonderful as far as they go. But they only go so far, and they are incapable of accounting for specified complexity.
So now mechanistic explanations fail to account for specified complexity, so what does? And why should we accept the claim that specified complexity and mechanistic explanations are incompatible?
And while Dembski insists that "In rejecting mechanical accounts of specified complexity, design theorists are not arguing from ignorance. Arguments from ignorance have the form "Not X, therefore Y." I would argue that that is exactly what Intelligent Design does Not chance/regularity therefore Intelligent Design. While Dembski may argue that he believes that there are compelling reasons that CSI can sweep clean the hypotheses of chance and regularity, it seems that in an open system CSI can increase through fully natural means as well.
But given Nelson's claims I am still wondering if there are ID proponents out there who believe that ID can and should deal in mechanisms/pathways?
Gedanken, if you want to start your own continuation thread to discuss your arguments, by all means please do. I believe that you have some very interesting points to make and I do not believe that they have been fully addressed. But I did not intend to start this thread as a continuation of your specific arguments but rather to discuss some of the side issues raised by Nelson Alonso. I found some of his claims to be quite interesting especially when compared to the claims by for instance Dembski and I was hoping for some clarification into these matters. Furthermore I was hoping to find some convergence in the arguments proposed by Nelson especially since several of his claims seem to be very much contradictory.
For example Nelson claims that I did not address the Gould remarks on Mayr, yet I did address his non sequitur claims in this area. Nelson wants to suggest that "Francis didn't discuss any of the quotes or any of my points, for example, about how Gould stated that Mayre looked at things in biology "that make the least sense" as the "proof" of evolution"
As I argued, contrary to Nelson's assertions, Darwin did not argue (not design thus evolution) but rather (given observation A, evolution can explain this in a non ad hoc manner while design does not seem to be able to formulate a non ad hoc argument).
Perhaps Nelson would benefit from a more careful reading of my postings which would help reducing some of the confusions we observe in his 'responses'.
[ 07. April 2003, 03:00: Message edited by: Frances ]
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gedanken
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posted 07. April 2003 11:42
Sorry if I seemed in any way negative, I am very interested in this thread. From title only the subject seems to not include some aspects I wanted to continue, but Frances' post contains reference to much of that material. (Alonso and I were only agreeing, I think, on an interest in a thread that included a combination of aspects -- I certainly don't agree with the reasons relating to your points.) Also I probably won't start another thread myself, I'm having enough problem getting interest in the one I want to focus on and my time is limited.
I hope I can answer some aspects here while keeping to the named subject.
Would you have any interest in renaming the thread "Is Intelligent Design a Mechanistic Theory?" ? This would help address moderator's concern that subject is a negative assertion. (Moderator can make such changes if you ask.)
Worded thusly, and combined with some of your opening comments, this could continue a substantial portion of my argument with Alonso, and also could bring in some aspects of a post from Langham that I and others could respond to. The subject of "mechanism" is very important -- just what is a 'scientific' mechanism?
[ 07. April 2003, 11:58: Message edited by: gedanken ]
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Nel
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posted 10. April 2003 14:47
Particpiating in Yersinia's thread made me realize that it looks nothing like this one, in that it is about the issue of whether ID can use mechanisms in and of itself.
Francis,
I was wondering if you can specifically, respond to several points I made in the Organism thread. I will lay them out specifically because for two posts now I don't see any discussion of them.
For example, you didn't address my distinction bewteen Dembski's use of the word "mechanism" and my use of the word "mechanism". Dembski is defining the word mechanism as a "regularity". I am defining the use of the word mechanism as an "instrument". Can you address that specifically? I actually did propose some of these mechanisms, for example, lateral gene transfer.
When you quote Dembski, you are supporting this distinction. For example, it is obvious from the quote that Dembski is using the definition:
"The doctrine that all natural phenomena are explicable by material causes and mechanical principles"
Dembski is saying that you cannot get specified complexity by material causes alone. But using a lawnmower is not mowing my lawn by a material cause alone, it is mowing my lawn through intelligently designed use of that machine, which was itself intelligently designed. In that you cannot reduce the mechanism itself to a material cause (Darwinian evolution).
With regard to my quotes on Mayr and Darwin. Where did you address this?
All you say in your post is:
quote:
As I argued, contrary to Nelson's assertions, Darwin did not argue (not design thus evolution) but rather (given observation A, evolution can explain this in a non ad hoc manner while design does not seem to be able to formulate a non ad hoc argument).
But in fact, the Mayr quote states:
quote:
Odd arrangements and funny solutions are the proof of evolution, paths that a sensible God would never tread but that a natural process, constrained by history, follows perforce. No one understood this better than Darwin. Ernst Mayr has shown how Darwin, in defending evolution, consistently turned to organic parts and geographic distributions that make the least sense.
Can you address this quote specifically? For example, what do you think of the fact that paths that a sensible God would not take are proof of evolution, as the quote states?
What do you think of the fact taht Darwin consistently turned to things that make the least sense when he defended evolutionary theory?
In otherwords, when you say that Darwin used sub-optimal design (arguments against design) to support evolution (because ID can only come up with "ad-hoc" arguments, thats what you said), he was in fact arguing against design in order to support evolution. So, why do you complain when we actually support design by arguing against evolution?
For example, I can turn the tables from what you said. Given observation of IC system A,Intelligent Design can explain this in a non ad hoc manner while Darwinian evolution does not seem to be able to formulate a non ad hoc argument (in that it invokes unselectable steps and a myriad of promisory notes for future explanations). So whats the difference?
[ 10. April 2003, 15:02: Message edited by: Nelson_Alonso ]
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gedanken
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posted 10. April 2003 16:30
Alonso quoting Mayr:
quote:
Odd arrangements and funny solutions are the proof of evolution, paths that a sensible God would never tread but that a natural process, constrained by history, follows perforce. No one understood this better than Darwin. Ernst Mayr has shown how Darwin, in defending evolution, consistently turned to organic parts and geographic distributions that make the least sense.
My own interpretation is that “make the least sense” meant (to Darwin) making the least sense when viewing it from a perspective of “design”. I put “design” in quotes because “design” is the natural perspective when one tries to figure out how something works -- one thinks in terms of how oneself would make it work with the aspects observed, in an attempt to figure out how the system being observed works. But Darwin then made sense of the “odd arrangements and funny solutions” because they are fit with a pattern in which a “design” or “pseudo-design” process of descent with random modification followed by selection would do. (Note “modification,” not “mutation”.) By limiting his imagination to those processes, the observation “makes sense.” The optimal design perspective is a very natural perspective for trying to understand how something works, to make sense of it, and my assertion is that was his perspective from natural psychological reasons, not because Darwin was arguing against “design.”
Now ID advocates have repeatedly stated that there are few if any constraints on what a “designer” would produce, beyond a working organism. There is no limitation to “optimal” design, there is no ability to specify what sort of design processes are to be assumed. In fact the “designer’s” properties are supposed to be ignored completely (examining claimed evidence for natural processes, or lack thereof, and whether the functionality has any similarity to any functionality that any person has designed or recognized in language before).
“Design” processes could have produced optimal design in some sense. Or “design” processes could produce suboptimal design. “Design” processes could even use descent with modification pattern, tweaking only a small portion of the previous generation in the next. All these are consistent with “design”, and are explicitly consistent because one is expected (in ID presentations) to ignore any detailed analysis of the designer itself and constraints that the designer would use (like “optimality”).
One must remember that in Darwin’s day, the actions of an “unembodied designer” making changes in the physical world that would not be understood operationally by humans was often the default assumption. What Darwin noticed is that one could understand the operational functioning of the processes being observed, one could understand important aspects of how organisms forms changed over generations.
This is a positive argument for descent with modification, not a negative argument against design.
Alonso said:
quote:
For example, I can turn the tables from what you said. Given observation of IC system A,Intelligent Design can explain this in a non ad hoc manner while Darwinian evolution does not seem to be able to formulate a non ad hoc argument (in that it invokes unselectable steps and a myriad of promisory notes for future explanations). So whats the difference?
Now the moderator has given Frances a hard time for repeating that ID is an eliminative argument. But my question is how is it not eliminative? How does Intelligent Design explain this in a non ad hoc manner? Especially how does it do so without starting to make assumptions about the designer -- assumptions that will provide further testable aspects (and thus we can immediately start to test for those aspects)?
Alonso’s statement about Darwinian evolution was in terms of unselectable steps or “promisory notes”. I think this is a misdirection about the science of evolutionary biology. Biology does not claim to have understood the development of the flagellum, for example, when the direct intermediates are not known, in terms of details of those direct intermediates. What evolutionary theory does is work from a larger picture that a vast grid of observations is generally consistent in the larger picture. Then it assumes that such relationships may be found in specific details (like the organism with a flagellum). But that assumption is only an assumption, and is not a claim that something unusual did not happen in an individual case. The confirmation of the theory is in the larger picture, not specifically in the organism with the flagellum. But no conflict has been found, no one has demonstrated that the flagellum is in conflict with that theory.
So “promisory notes” is misleading because there is no “promise” that the mystery of the flagellum will be solved! But as to “unselectable steps”, that has not been demonstrated. While there is no “promise” that the mystery will be solved, we have operational experience of science coming up with such explanations. That is the only promise of scientific method, that it will continue to come up with explanations for similar cases -- not a “promise” for the individual case. But then I believe that science will probably locate evidence that further clarifies the descent with modification pathways of the organism with a flagellum, but that is not a “promise”, it is simply an educated guess. That Alonso has demonstrated that there is a requirement for unselected steps is something that Alonso has most certainly not done, because Alnoso has never demonstrated that there are not possible cases that he has not left unanalyzed. And that is not a “promisory” note on the side of biological science, it is a claim that Alonso has made yet not delivered on because it is not humanly possible to ever examine all such possible cases. No conflict exists for Dawinian evolution, simply an unsolved mystery. (And there are potential solutions already being offered.)
By the way, the bit about “paths that a sensible God would never tread” is somewhat of a misstatement. There is no way to know a-priori if “a sensible God” might choose evolution as His design method, for example, and thus such a God might very well tread that path. The organisms make sense, both as His design, and in following a pathway of a consistent physical natural history.
[ 10. April 2003, 17:22: Message edited by: gedanken ]
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Nel
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posted 12. April 2003 15:54
Ged,
The quote was quite unambiguous. Obviously Darwin was looking to "paths that a sensible God would never tread" as the proof of evolution. That is arguing against design to prove evolution. In fact, sub-optimal design is the cornerstone for Darwinism even today. "Why would God make two sequences look alike?" etc. Darwin was indeed arguing against “design.”
Ged states:
quote:
Now ID advocates have repeatedly stated that there are few if any constraints on what a “designer” would produce, beyond a working organism. There is no limitation to “optimal” design, there is no ability to specify what sort of design processes are to be assumed.
This is simply false on several fronts. The designer's properties are not ignored, just that it is the property of design that we are currently interested in. Furthermore, I have never seen an ID advocate make a statement about optimal design. In fact, I've seen them make statements against it. Intelligent Design is Not Optimal Design
In direct opposite of Ged's claim, ID advocates repeatedly state that there are constraints on on optimal design and even what the designer may produce. In fact, Dembski calls this "constrained optimal design". Now, of course design is consistent with sub-optimal design and constrained optimal design. Thats just a matter of fact and not due to the plasticity of ID theory.
In Darwin's day, and today, the evidence against the acts of an intelligent designer was the sub-optimal design itself. This does not mean, as Ged states, that it was just things "we couldn't understand", but evil things, like suffering:
quote:
It revolts our understanding to suppose that [God's] benevolence is not unbounded, for what advantage can there be in the sufferings of millions of lower animals throughout almost endless time? This very old argument from the existence of suffering against he existence of an intelligent First Cause seems to me a strong one; and the abundant presence of suffering agrees well with the view that all organic beings have been developed through variation and natural selection.
Red and tooth and claw, survival of the fittest, predator-prey brutality, this was the evidence that Darwin used to defend his theory. Thus, a negative argument for intelligent design is used as evidence for Darwinian evolution.
With respect to my quote about how Darwinian evolution only ad-hocly explains IC systems, Ged states:
quote:
Now the moderator has given Frances a hard time for repeating that ID is an eliminative argument. But my question is how is it not eliminative?
First, the moderator did not give Frances a hard time for saying that ID is an eliminative argument, and that this is not true. But for repeating it over and over again and asserting it poses a problem for ID. I say that it doesn't. I can see ID as an eliminative, not all ID hypothesis are, such as Mike's various hypothesis like cytosine deamination, or various explanations for sub-optimal design. But some are eliminative. In fact, it's not only Dembski's ID inference that is eliminative. All of our ID inferences are eliminative. When we see a design event the first thing we do is start eliminating, a bunch of scrabble pieces that spell out the sentence "why are you playing scrabble" would be unlikely to have been spelled out by your cat, an earthquake, or wind. And thats the first thing that comes to your mind. If such a thing could have been done gradually by a natural process we rule out design immediately even though it could have been designed.
How intelligent design explains sub-optimal design in a non-ad hoc manner is by looking at the scientific data. In many cases, what we think is sub-optimal design is only apparent, such as the wasteful process of protein synthesis being useful for our response to viruses. So in a lot of ways, sub-optimal design are overflowing plates of research projects for ID theorists.
Of course design is consistent with sub-optimal design and constrained optimal design. Thats just a matter of fact and not due to the plasticity of ID theory. We see sub-optimal design today being done by intelligent agents.
Ged states that:
quote:
Biology does not claim to have understood the development of the flagellum, for example, when the direct intermediates are not known, in terms of details of those direct intermediates.
But in this statement he confirms that Ged is looking for intermediates that will be known and thus, this is nothing but a promise for future theories. Ged also makes the assertion that there are no conflicts between flagella Darwinian theory, but there are, and there has been no response to this from Ged. There are unselectable steps and pure chance events that Darwinsm simply cannot explain. Ged mentions only in passing that unselectable steps has not been demonstrated, and yet here is a demonstration:
We have to start with an M ring which only has a flagellum specific function. Then we have to follow up with a C ring which is just as flagellum specific. Outside the flagellum, it has no function. Thus we have unselectable steps and it would take an argument from ignorance on the part of the Darwinist to say that someday, we may find a selectable function, or a type III system that precedes the bacterial flagellum, those are promisory notes in all it's glory . And then you have the problem of the 6 part export machine. There is no evidence that any subset of this export machine carries out alternative function. So thats quite a few unselectable steps right there. Then you would obviously want to add FliE since it's a great proto-filament, but FliE has no obvious role outside the flagellum either. Not even the Type III secretory system requires it. Thats another unselectable step. Then you have the rod, which is three components that are functionally indivisible, so adding each additional component of the rod adds more unselectable steps.
When Ged says that this demonstration fails because of some vague, invisible possible case that he doesn't know even exists, and that I should consider, you are seeing yet another example of a "promisory note". And that is an argument from ignorance.
[ 12. April 2003, 16:03: Message edited by: Nelson_Alonso ]
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gedanken
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posted 12. April 2003 20:12
Interesting that Alonso should provide a link to “Intelligent Design is not Optimal Design”, as that was precisely the paper I was thinking of as well. So if a design is found to be well optimized in some particular sense -- do we then not ascribe it to ID if it otherwise would have been subject to a so-called “design inference”? I suspect not. So Dembski’s paper shows clearly that if the apparent design were not optimal according to some particular optimizing conditions, that would not be a constraint on the designer. And if the apparent design were optimal by those conditions, that would not be a constraint on the designer. I fail to see a constraint being placed on what would constitute design from the standpoint of the designer. Indeed “designs” are constrained to actually functioning in the real world -- but then so does natural selection place that constraint, providing no new constraints on the “designer”.
But descent with modification followed by natural selection places clear constraints on the apparent design. This is clearly what Darwin was noticing.
Alonso’s unattributed quote beginning with “It revolts our understanding” must have been intended as a quote from Darwin. It seems to suffer from exactly the same explanation as is found in Dembski’s paper on optimal design, that evil exists in this world, or that physical constraints of a physical world surely produces its own constraints on the contents of that world whether designed or not. The existence of the “red tooth and claw” of apparent evil in this world can’t be used by Dembski to claim that intelligent design does not need to avoid these things, and then simultaneously meant that Darwin’s understanding must be a denial of design per se.
(I recognize the time shift, and I am not denying that Darwin may have had personal reactions to the design argument, thinking them to be false. This I don’t care to investigate at the moment, and possibly would never know if I did. My point is strictly about the relationships he discovered -- the argument is not inherently anti-design, as the existence of those relationships are pointed out by Dembski to not be anti-design, and they are clearly pointed out by Darwin and his later followers as evidence specifically for descent with modification. I would also note as an aside that there is no argument that evolutionary processes are not God’s design, that design and descent with modification are not simultaneously so -- just another aspect of how these constraints are positive evidence for descent with modification and natural selection, not negative arguments about design.)
Alonso, to the extent that you don’t think that arguments in the form of an “argument from ignorance” are not a problem for ID, that’s fine with me.
"Why are you playing scrabble" is most likely produced by a human that speaks English -- there is positive evidence for the existence of speakers of such language and of people moving such pieces to form words. Bayesean inference would produce a positive inference of human cause, and not by an eliminative argument.
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In many cases, what we think is sub-optimal design is only apparent, such as the wasteful process of protein synthesis being useful for our response to viruses.
So the evidence of optimization that would be produced by descent with modification and natural selection is also evidence for “design”. Humm….
As to “future theories” and “promissory notes” again:
Alonso suggests that there might be a future case in which we find a “Type III secretory system” that proceeds the bacterial flagellum. It is my understanding (read somewhere) that the flagellum is actually constructed by a “type III secretory system” as its construction mechanism. (I’m not a biologist, this is only something I have read and pose for consideration, especially for comments by knowledgeable biologists.) If this is the case, then the “type III secretory system” must at least be simultaneous with the flagellum, else it could not exist, and this is a purely logical constraint. So our observation having not yet seen a historical example of another such type III system is a “gap”. Is ID theory a “gap” theory?
I think the “promissory note” idea is a very important concept of this thread. The question inherent in the thread title is the question of whether ID is “mechanistic”. Clearly Darwinian evolution is a mechanistic theory. But once again, Darwinian theory does not claim completeness. Sure there are philosophical positions that claim completeness is possible or probable. But science itself simply finds connections and reports them. That does not mean that we don’t have a lot of information about how the organism with the flagellum developed -- I leave that to the biologists. Just that lack of such information is not inherently a failure of Darwinian evolutionary theory. And “mechanism” worthy of study is apparent, whether or not there is “design” in this world. What Darwinian theory has “promised” is a consistent pattern of finding relationships that fit the theory of descent with modification -- and that is consistent with observation.
The “promissory note” is a claim that science is supposed to find complete answers. There is a relationship here to promissory notes that ID could produce a mechanistic explanation of “design”. (Unless of course “ID is not a mechanistic theory.”)
[ 12. April 2003, 21:06: Message edited by: gedanken ]
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RBH
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posted 13. April 2003 00:23
This may be inappropriate, and if so the Moderator will no doubt let me know about it. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
The title of this thread is "Intelligent design is not a mechanistic theory." What I can't figure out is why it's called a "theory" at all. I've read a good deal of ID by now, starting with Gish, Henry Morris, et alia, in the 1980s, through Dembksi, Wells, and Behe in the 2000's, ending (most recently) with fighting my way through virtually all 797 pages in the paperback edition of Pennock's Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics. What I have yet to find is a theory of intelligent design. I understand a "theory" in science to have several characteristics and functions. Among them (very sketchily outlined) are:
1. Organize phenomena into classes, where the classes are connected by relationships described in general laws and law-like principles that are corroborated by a body of empirical research.
2. Provide an explanation of phenomena, where "explanation" means to assign the particular phenomenon to be explained to the appropriate class from among those mentioned above and invoke the law-like relationships - causal, correlational, exclusionary, etc. - among the classes to account for the particular phenomenon. That is, explanation is subsumption of particular phenomena under larger classes to which the various relations specified in general laws apply.
3. Generate predictions of new observations of phenomena. A simple-minded example is if a newly found phenomenon a is tentatively assigned to Class A, and a general law-like principle is 'If A, then B,' go look for b, a member of Class B, in the specified association with a.
4. Be as consistent as possible with the laws, principles, and generalizations in relevant neighboring domains of scientific inquiry. E.g. if one is hypothesizing about neural information-processing activity, one is not permitted to invoke FTL information transmission rates.
"Mechanisms" enter in several of the points above, but I mostly understand describing a "mechanism" to be describing the physical (matter and energy) transformations that connect the classes referred to in numbers 1-3 above. That is, the notion of "mechanism" is intimately bound up with the relations between classes. It goes beyond correlational relations, where the occurrences of phenomena in A are more-or-less regularly associated with occurrences of phenomena in B, to a description of transformational relations which describe how members of A are transformed into members of B by a series of physical transformations/operators, where again "physical" means embodied in matter and energy.
(As noted, there are other potential relations between A and B; here I'm focusing just on "mechanism." Also, while I've written of "A" transformed to "B" as though one class generates another, there are often (always?) many-one and/or one-many relations among classes.)
Given this sketch, I have yet to see an intelligent design theory, say nothing of a mechanistic ID theory.
One might argue that by requiring physical transformations/mechanisms, I have begged the question in the sense of building the conclusion into the premises. The most common form of that argument appeals to abstract information and its putative causal efficacy. The "mental causes" discussions often implicitly invoke the same notion of abstract immaterial (or at least non-physical) thoughts having causal efficacy in the physical world, "known" because we (introspectively) have thoughts that have no (introspectively) observable physical instantiation (I know, Alix: neurologists are closer and closer to observing them!), and those thoughts appear to have causal efficacy in the sense of driving or generating observable behavior. I decide to turn left at the next corner, and by golly, I turn left there! That (non-physical?) thought must surely have causal efficacy in the physical world because I can see those effects happen! I think, and then do. Seeing the doing, the (non-physical?) thought is inferred to be the cause of the doing.
I reject that criticism of my characterization for one principal reason. While it is not uncommon for unobservable entities to be postulated purely on the basis of observations of their putative effects (neutrinos and dark matter immediately come to mind), it is also the case that those unobservable entities are typically tightly constrained by the existing theory in the context of which they are hypothesized, and by what is already known about the transformations they are hypothesized to initiate or participate in. Moreover, they are always invoked in the context of a wider physical theory, and hypotheses about other potential effects implied by that theory given the postulated unobserved entities (testable hypotheses) are actively - avidly! - sought. That is, the mere invocation of an unobserved hypothetical entity as an potential explanation immediately sets off a focused search for other tests of its existence and properties. A search is mounted for other observable consequences and effects of the hypothesized entity, and tests - experimental or observational - are performed to ascertain whether those consequences and effects are observed. A long series of experiments designed to first detect neutrinos, and then to put ever-tighter limits on their mass(es) and other properties have occurred over the past couple of decades.
No such research program is even remotely in view for the abstract-information-generated-by-unknown- intelligent-agents notion of ID. In fact, there is active resistance to hypotheses that would constrain - find the limits of - the designing agent(s) and design processes. I conclude that the title of the thread is correct: Intelligent design is not a mechanistic theory, and in fact is not a theory at all. At most it is a potentially interesting conjecture.
The sketch above also speaks to the vacuousness of the various demands for 'a detailed evolutionary pathway' for this or that characteristic of organisms. Given a strongly corroborated theory, where the transformational relations between classes are well supported by evidence - observations of the steps in the transformation occurring in a number of instances is one sort of evidence - then it becomes less and less necessary (and more and more a waste of resources!) to provide the detailed sequence of transformations for every single member of a class. If I explain the trajectory (pretty much straight down) of my pencil as it falls from my desk to the floor by invoking gravity, I am not required to also provide a graph of the acceleration of the pencil in a 1-g field taking into account the local elevation above sea level (and hence distance from the center of mass of the earth), the mass of the pencil, and the effects of air resistance and the miniscule effects on the trajectory of other masses off to the side, like me. The pencil and the earth are masses with the earth's mass being vastly the most important, the pencil is unconstrained by anything except air, and it falls straight to the floor pretty quickly. And that explains it. I don't have to do a detailed analysis of each and every instance of every object on my desk falling to the floor to classify them all as actual or potential instances of "objects falling in a 1-g field;" I can leave it at that assertion.
What critics of evolutionary theory don't believe is that the current theory explaining the phenomena of biological change through deep time - evolution - is in roughly the same state. The already identified mechanisms - transformational operators - identified by evolutionary theory do a pretty good job of accounting for the phenomena; there is way too much evidence corroborating the action of those mechanisms to rationally deny that. When a new or questionable phenomenon - like the bacterial flagellum - is identified, because it is a highly corroborated theory, evolution is the default explanation even if we don't know the detailed sequence of transformations, unless and until someone can provide a theory describing transformations leading to it that are not contained in evolutionary theory. And ID has not done that.
It is of interest to do research to try to identify the evolutionary transformations and mechanisms that lead to bacterial flagella, but not because IDists identify them as irreducibly complex or some such. Rather, the various kinds of flagella are more or less closely related to the structures that allow bacteria to make us very ill and sometimes kill us, and understanding the nature, evolution, genetic underpinnings, and modes of operation of those kinds of structures has potential benefits for us. Otherwise I suspect it would merely be a mildly interesting biological oddity.
RBH
[ 13. April 2003, 00:47: Message edited by: RBH ]
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posted 13. April 2003 01:07
RBH,
Your post starts off poorly, because it violates the principle of charity. You know perfectly well that ID theorists prefer not be mixed in with Creationists. So why not respect those wishes? Regardless of what you may believe, it is important for the overall health of this board that you respect other participants. If you've got contempt, and can't withold it, then go somewhere else.
Please use more caution in the future. I'm closing this thread as it has been sputtering from the very beginning.
[ 13. April 2003, 01:11: Message edited by: Moderator ]
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